In the decades following the First World War, when aviation was still a revelation, flight was perceived as a spectacle to delight the eyes & stimulate the imagination. Robert Wohl takes us back to this time, recapturing the achievements of pioneering aviators & exploring flight as a source of cultural inspiration in the United States & Europe. Wohl begins the story of aviation in this era with a fresh account of Charles Lindbergh's dramatic New York-Paris flight in 1927, then goes on to discuss how Mussolini identified his fascist regime with the modernist cachet of aviation. Wohl shows how the Hollywood film industry
- aided by such director-flyers as William Wellman, Howard Hawks, & Howard Hughes
- created the aviation film; how writers such as Antoine de St-Exupery helped foster France's self-image as the winged nation; & how the spectacle of flight reached its tragic apotheosis during the bombing campaigns of the Spanish Civil War & World War II. Generously illustrated with rare photographs, paintings, & posters, this book offers a gripping account of aviation & its hold on the popular imagination during the first half of the twentieth century.